Sun, beer, food, the City skyline and some of the best live bands the world has to offer and you come away with one kick ass Shaky Knees 2015 weekend; short shorts, bright lights, the smell of weed in the air, Hula Hoops, frisbees and the like and you have a multi-day music festival – an ever moving, ‘don’t stop till its over’ experience..a good festival is an entity among itself. We’ve attended all three of these Shaky Knees shindigs and 2015 was the best yet. Central Park (the location of the original Music Midtown) is a pretty awesome festival venue. Tons of shade (last year there was none, although it mostly rained), grass and plenty of spots to post up and chill to your favorite band if you don’t want to be up ‘in the mix’ of the sweaty crowd.

Energy, energy, energy – that’s what its all about at festivals for us and you’ll see that motif as I write about the bands that I think rocked it the most this past weekend. Festival bands have to bring the energy and plenty did at Shaky Knees 2015. Friday was filled with a ton of amazing acts including Brand New, The Pixies, Mac Demarco, Clutch, Mastadon, James Blake and the Strokes. Check back all week for more pics, videos and the low down on the rest of the acts at Shaky Knees 2015.

We kicked off our festival experience walking up to Jukebox the Ghost right as they kicked off an amazing cover of Queen’s “Don’t Stop me Now.” The crowd went crazy and everyone could be heard commenting on just how good the cover was…and then there was dancing. They went hard the entire set and it was a great way to help kick off a spectacular weekend.

The next show we caught was The Kooks. I was super excited as I missed their show last time I had a chance to see them at Bonnaroo 2012. Their set included hits like “Ooh La”, “Bad Habit” and “She moves in her own Way.” They were everything any fan could ask for…they sounded great, kept the energy up and pleased with fan favorites. See a short clip of the band and the crowd on our instagram:

Mac Demarco was on our top list of shows to see ever since our good friend and occasional beatlanta contributor (film reviews), Phil Hogan, introduced us to him about 5 months ago. The music is pretty chill and while the show started out a bit dull for me, he really upped the ante when he decided to jump on the crowd for some good ole’ crowd surfing – video below. You gotta love it when the lead singer stage dives into the crowd and provides that energy we’re looking for. We sat across the way on a hill next to the stage he was not playing on. You can see the very large crowd Mac Demarco attracted. He kicked off a world tour this year so I think we can expect big things down the road for Mac Demarco.

Its also been widely reported that Mac joined the Strokes later in the night to sing and play guitar on their song “Last Nite”…but that wasn’t the case, he was only there to give props and some hugs to the guys in the Strokes. That’s that fun festival stuff you only experience when you’re there. You can see video of Julian Casablanca’s addressing Mac here (filmed by an audience member as far as I can tell), and you also get a Strokes Song…enjoy 🙂

Check back all week for more pics, videos and the low down on the rest of the acts at Shaky Knees 2015, including the rest of the acts we saw on Day 1.